A friend who doesn't use Newsgroups has a squirrel living in his attic and wants to know how to get it out. Has anyone done this? What worked, aside from my first response (burn his house down)?
Thanks,
Rick
How does he know it's a squirrel?
(Picturing an attic door dropping down and ten tons of acorns falling out.)
GOOGLE:
Jim
Tell him he should be damn glad it's only a squirrel and not a raccoon. Coons are really nasty critters that should basically just all be shot, just like cats.
Other than that, you might have him call the county animal control office, or surf the web for one of those "kind" cage-type traps that trap the animal but keep it alive so you can let it go in the woods or something.
AJS
I called a pro. They did a great job and give me a lot of good information in the process. I suggest that there are a lot of variables in the process. For example they explained the different food habits and that some food only works in some areas or at certain times of the year. They did a live capture (they got two, just what they expected) and made sure there were no more. The price was not bad.
BTW The little buggers had scratched through the drywall and had small holes in one wall. We were able to discourage them from that plan, but in short order they would have been doing more damage.
At first I tried moth balls, and that did not work. Then I used rat poison. Four days later they were all gone. Then installed hardware cloth over the vents where they were finding/chewing their way in.
Actually, conservationists have shown that this is next to useless when it comes to releasing in the relative vicinity. The damn things almost always tend to find their way back to where they came from, especially if it's a nest.
The only 100% reliable way to control nature's critter-vermin is to kill it and/or its habitat. If you need to practice up, almost every neighborhod has some spinster with 500 cats in her house and collecting more by the week ...
AJS
Tell your buddy to stand next to the door and......
ACT LIKE A NUT!!!
Couldn' t resist....
Chris....
Thanks,
Rick
In article , snipped-for-privacy@shaw.ca says... :) A friend who doesn't use Newsgroups has a squirrel living in his :) attic and wants to know how to get it out. Has anyone done this? :) What worked, aside from my first response (burn his house down)? :) :) Need to determine if it is squirrel or rats. If it is squirrels there should be an obvious tennis ball sized opening they are using....at this site (cut- n-paste)...
I had a squirrel in the house and got a cage/trap from the local SPCA. Paid a modest deposit, refunded when I returned the cage. They also took the critter. Baited with peanut butter on a cracker.
get one of those wire cages, like have a hart..... we bought one and got it to try to catch squireles that come in the back yard... we were gonna relocate them to the city park.... only problem is all we caught were stray cats and rats... not one yet, been two years and alot of dead rats and relocated cats... but i bet the would work in an attic with the right food, i dont know what it could be???
I came across a small squirrel in my house in December. I was walking down the hall and saw a tail going around a corner. I believe it came in through a small hole in my bricks which I had patched a week earlier. Apparently it had been living in the walls.
I chased it into the office, then barricaded the door with a large mounted poster. I then found my have-a-hart trap, baited it with peanut butter, and left it in the office. A few minutes later I head the trap close. I took the squirrel a few miles away to a park and released it.
Over the years I have caught many squirrels outside with peanut butter (while trying to catch mice). They are crazy about peanut butter.
My Dad tried moving squirrels to get them out of the bird feeder. He finally concluded that moving squirrles is like trying to empty the ocean with a bucket, and pouring the water back into the other side of the boat.
I used a combo approa
cut off overhanging tree limbs Borrowed a pellet gun for a few weeks (in suburb so no shotgun or .22) rat poison well ground and mixed into real peanut butter (feeder on tree close to good window to shoot from most helpful)
Louis
In article , snipped-for-privacy@anon.com says... ~ I used a combo approa ~ ~ cut off overhanging tree limbs ~ Borrowed a pellet gun for a few weeks (in suburb so no shotgun or .22) ~ rat poison well ground and mixed into real peanut butter ~ (feeder on tree close to good window to shoot from most helpful) ~ Thanks, everyone, for your ideas. I've passed them along to my friend, who asked me to thank you on his behalf.
Chris, we got a good laugh out of your suggestion.
Cheers,
Rick
Paintball gun. They stay away for days.. No need to dispose of dead rodents..=20
To reply, please remove one letter from each side of "@" Spammers are VERMIN. Please kill them all.
I too recently called in a nuisance wildlife company. ~My~ squirrel had chewed through sheetrock in an upstairs dormer closet. I patched it after shoving steel wool and mothballs into the opening. The critter control company then set up live traps on my roof [too difficult for me to get to myself], and each morning I would call them to let them know if anything had been caught. They came by daily to clear the traps.
The culprit squirrel was absolutely ~huge~--big as a Buick--and very aggressive...came at me when I opened the bedroom window earlier to have a look at the trap. Also trapped were two adolescent squirrels. I assume, based on the noises I was hearing in the early evening in the affected bedroom closet, that they were a family unit. I have my fingers crossed that this is the target family and that the company can now complete the contract by repairing and screening off this dormer area and three others on the roof.
As regards trap-and-release this company did not claim to release them somewhere else; the squirrel population is fairly brisk in Seattle; instead they admitted to me when I asked that the squirrels would be euthanized [he said gassed], that they considered a squirrel which had actually breached the boundaries of a residence to be unfit for transport and release into someone else's neighborhood. I was saddened to contemplate that I was responsible for killing three squirrels, but I also need to be assured that my house won't be set on fire by their chewing through my electrical wiring while I'm at work or out of town.
My next step is to have the tree trimmers out again--should have done this about a year ago--to trim the new tree growth back from the roof line.
Best regards, A similarly-situated homeowner in Seattle
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